Nanjing Agricultural University scientists investigated the impact of
hemin treatment on anthocyanin production in radish sprouts. Their
findings are reported in/BMC Plant Biology/.

Anthocyanins are plant pigments with enormous health benefits to humans.
Thus, researchers continuously search for ways to improve the
anthocyanin contents of plant foods. In a previous study, the
researchers found that nitric oxide plays a positive role in the
accumulation of anthocyanin in radish sprouts.

The researchers applied hemin, an inducer of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), to
increase nitric oxide production. This resulted to significant
expression of several structures and regulatory genes involved in
anthocyanin production. Thus, the amount of anthocyanin in radish
hypocotyls increased significantly. Furthermore, hemin treatment raised
nitric oxide contents in radish sprouts, probably through enhancing
nitrate reductase activity and Nitric Oxide-Associated 1 (NOA1) expression.

Improving the anthocyanin accumulation of hypocotyls in radish sprouts
by hemin-induced NO | BMC Plant Biology | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)
[bmcplantbiol.biomedcentral.com]